 Soren Kierkegaard in His Life and Literature, by Adolf Holt, published in 1906. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings were in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Soren Kierkegaard in His Life and Literature On the eleventh of last November, fifty years had passed away since the oddest and most complex genius in Denmark's literary and religious history fell asleep in Copenhagen, his birthplace, at the Frederick Hospital, after a final illness of a month or more, unfriended almost, with little to cheer him but the kind nurse, the spray of flowers he so much loved, and the triumphant certainty of his Christian hope. His birth centenary comes the fifth of May, 1913. Forty-two-and-one-half years of perhaps the intensest kind of mental life recorded in his country's annals, and many another for that matter, was all this gigantic intellect needed for the inauguration of a deeply conceived intellectual and religious awakening, and for producing a literature amazing as to size, content, and purpose. Copenhagen, the little Paris of the North, had even then long enough been stung by this buzzing bee that busily gathered honey for the national hive, but instantaneously turned on any interfering object. Athens was no more troubled by her profoundly busy-bodying Socrates than Copenhagen by her recluse agitator Kierkegaard, the most splendid Christian counterpart to the quaint ironic philosopher of Greece. Socrates walked the streets, idled on the marketplaces, lounged about everywhere on deep ethical missions. The university-bred Kierkegaard shot himself up in his elegant suite of rooms, pacing to and fro, and ever and anon pausing to jot down his flash-like thoughts, on the occasionally delivering religious addresses in the churches, and again went about incognito to converse with people in public parks or elsewhere. Both Socrates and Kierkegaard sought by the subtle pedagogy of philosophic irony to regenerate their respective ages. Kierkegaard, however, in the service of Christianity. Had not Kierkegaard inherited from his venerable father, who was a manufacturer and grocery merchant, a goodly estate, his life as a retired man of thought and letters would have shaped itself far differently. Though a son of his father's old age, he was fifty-seven at Soren's birth, and by his father's second wife, a former housekeeper, the father lived till Soren was twenty-five, and the melancholy, brooding, dialectical, serious, and churchly old man left his son not merely a mental inheritance, and the ineffacable impress of his original sharp-cut personality, he left him also, from an astute business career, the means of an independent manner of living. Strange to say, it lasted just long enough to give Soren a debt-free funeral. For it must be noted that the bachelor Soren, who maintained his own rather splendid household, with the help of a man-servant by degrees, consumed his estate in costly literary ventures, nobly indifferent to pecuniary reward, when his pedagogical program demanded sacrifices. His brother Peter, much unlike Soren in nature, and later his ecclesiastical opponent, used his means to goodly worldly advantage, rose to honors, even becoming bishop in the state church. Socrates ended in prison with a cup of hemlock, Kierkegaard at a hospital in physical agonies, and quaffing the gall of Soren and rejection freely invited by himself. Like Ibsen's brand, men of one passionate purpose generally tear down the structure of their own prosperity, while hoarding treasures for succeeding ages. In view of the enormous, seemingly inexhaustible intellectual vitality of Kierkegaard, we might be prone to deplore that his tall, gaunt, fragile form no longer could endure the unnatural strain put upon it by the sleepless mind and unsubdued will until we carefully review his complex career, so enigmatic, so mysterious, and crammed with acute problems, yet steadily moving on by conscious determination toward an unavoidable dramatic climax that in the days of Turkramada and Bloody Elba would have meant assure martyrdom at the stake. Brandes, the agnostic literary savant at the University of Copenhagen, regards his death as untimely. Kierkegaard died at the right moment. Footnote, Soren Kierkegaard, 1877, page 329, and footnote. Evidence in support of this statement will be presented more satisfactorily by a review of his life and literature with the view of ascertaining what the central purpose of Kierkegaard's career was. To my knowledge no attempt has been made in America to place this unique personality before the English speaking world, apart from the one-sided sketches in Martinsons Christian Ethics, and notices in the forthcoming translation of Brandes' main currents of the 19th century literature. It is but right that the Anglo-American world take thoughtful notice of this towering mind, as have the people of Germany through pastor A. Barthold's translations and monographs. A life-writing in English is needed. Some thirteen years ago I was eyeing the shelves of a book repository when the queer title of an unassuming volume captured my attention. It was Kierkegaard's The Sickness Onto Death in a Swedish translation, the main opus of his second or religious period as defamed either or, 1843, of his first or psychological aesthetic period. Out of sheer curiosity I read that deep but difficult analysis of religious despair as the sickness onto death. Strange phraseology, novel form, profound paradoxes made the task rather tantalizing. All I at that time gained was the mysterious sense of a mind of eminent power and of a spirit at home in the intensest toils of the human soul, able to pierce beneath all the glittering shams of life to the fundamentals. His keen dialectics, lyric rhapsodies, flashlight visions into the soul depths, original labor in the interest of Christian personality, religious seriousness and triumphant Christian love, in spite of his irony and superb scorn of the mean, all deeply impressed with me. Still I remained a stranger to this strange man, so he was not to be read. I had laid hold of but one wheel in the complicated engineering of his literature, for made alone it were not possible to judge of the wonderful living mechanism in its entirety. Four years later I became acquainted with the biography by Rudin, which was read and reread, a work meriting translation into English. Then began the chronological study of all of Kierkegaard's numerous and often so difficult writings, and of the parallel portions of his massive diaries and paper scraps, the so-called Afarlatit papiri. His diaries and bescribbled scraps of paper are fallen leaves that make the loam of large discourse, much as Kant's Loci Blater, Rique and Reflexionan Ostkant's Nachschloss, Erdmann. A repeated perusal of Brondes' captivating biography in the full light of Kierkegaard's life work convinces me that Brondes' central conception of our author falls far short of the truth, fascinating as his development of certain literary and biographical features unquestionably is. An author's own plan for his activity together with the actual literature produced furnishes a sureer means of determining his position than an imported interpretation from a philosophic standpoint all out of sympathy with the subject analyzed. Kierkegaard's and Brondes' view of life stand in cutting contrast. We need not wonder at the misconstruction of Brondes. He proceeds from naturalistic presuppositions, Kierkegaard from the Christian Revelation, let Kierkegaard consider the desirable goal of his work, i. its animus textus, that Brondes brands as psychological petrifications, a perverted inheritance, a misguided development of life. Before the forum of Christian Revelation, Kierkegaard's worldview, whatever its glaring fallacies, remains the one consonant with the truth. We are, as students of Christian thought and of literature, greatly concerned with the problem of Kierkegaard's main purpose in his literature and program of life. What was his aim, if he had any? What his development, within the scope of his chief purpose? In what manner are the workings of his native genius, his life experiences, his surroundings, and the divinity that shapes our ends, reflected in his career? In brief, what the things that elemented, footnote Walton and footnote, his life and work? Kierkegaard was more than author, he was and wished to be the socratic tutor of his people, both by his dialectically arranged manner of life and by his vast literature, which step by step proceeded from the lower to the higher, and the highest forms of life, from the ascetic in Kierkegaard's sense to that of a Christian witness. Nor can he be understood unless these two classes of facts be remembered. 1. His two chief mental and personal traits. A. An unlimited craving to give expression to his thought and imagination. 2. And B. His restless need of busying his own self, as a sort of paradigm of life arising from a consciousness of his great resources of mind, and tortured forth by a harassing inherited melancholy. 2. His two spiritual powers. A. A deep Christian religiousness with a keen eye to the ethical. And B. The sense of a unique mission from God as a Christian Socrates. 3. Will not such a nature tend to be excessively selfish? 4. He would have been so had not his heart been the servant of a sensitive conscience, fostered by ceaseless study of Scripture and obedience to its guidance. 5. If the traits and powers named be kept in mind, the figure of soaring Kierkegaard will be spared in otherwise unavoidable caricature, to which the eminent brandes commits himself in spite of formful words and thoughts. 4. For practical purposes Kierkegaard's work may be divided into two periods, the ascetic beginning with either or in February 1843, when he was 29, ending in 1846, and the religious from 1846 to 1855, a space of only 12 years. However, for the sake of clearness, I would distinguish four periods. 1. The preparatory, which includes a literary review of a writing by Hans Christian Andersen. 2. The philosophical essay on the concept of irony with constant reference to Socrates, his doctor's thesis, an interesting analysis of philosophical irony quite Hegelian in spirit and terminology, but in spots prophetic of the coming labors, and then a few newspaper articles. 3. For Kierkegaard used the press from start to finish, much as he wore it with its flippant spirit. 4. Leaders of woman's suffrage might be interested in hearing that the very first product of Kierkegaard's pen was also a defense for the emancipation of the women, written when he was 21, but alas, a piece of irony. 2. The ascetic philosophical, with occasional religious psychological writings interspersed, like an undercurrent in the sea, rushing surface word now and then. 3. From purely literary viewpoint, this is his grand period, the style being brilliant, profound, glittering, romantic, ironical, enigmatic, and often lusciously lyrical. 4. Its principal works are either or 1843, Fear and Trembling, 1843, Repetition, 1843, Schentegels, means both repetition and taking back. 5. Philosophical fragments, 1844, the concept of anguish, 1844, stages on the path of life, 1845, and minor writings, religious, humorous, and polemical. 6. The books named are not novels, rather concrete experimental psychological treatises in an exquisite literary form, rich in beautiful thought, expressed in a language dialectical and lyrical, and conceived with an indefinable, insistent originality. 7. His command of language surprises, the miniature delicacy, facile aptitude for quaint terms of thought, and tricksy suggestions, talkative familiarity, and the power of easily expressing large discourse, United to a beautiful northern lyrical richness, which in Swedish reaches its classical climax, all these native traits of the Danish language Kierkegaard understands, loves, and embodies in his literature. 8. His style cannot be called popular, except in a refined sense, though in spite of frequent admixture of foreign words and philosophical terms, it possesses a peculiarly insistent character. 9. The Kierkegaard cadence, once part, rings on forever. There is that strenuous manner not attuned to the eloquence of a land door, of which Lowell says that it never enfeebled itself with undue emphasis. 10. The voices crying in the wilderness cannot always maintain the serenity of utterance, which churchly good-breeding requires, for they have the exceptional mission of exceptional souls in exceptional situations in history. Sometimes he makes difficult reading. 11. There are stretches so taxing as the ascent of one of the steep giants in our American Rockies, but patience is rewarded at last by a glimpse of enrapturing beauty and splendor. 12. The ingenious allusions to fairy stories, to old sagas and classic myths, to popular proverbs, to novel and witty situations in the drama of life, and in the drama on the stage, characteristic of the romantic period in European thought and Bell's letters, we find in this second stage of authorship, nor did it wholly desert him in his later labors. 13. Then between the ascetic and the succeeding period comes an invaluable philosophical piece, the concluding unscientific postscript, February 1846, a fearfully difficult production, fundamental for the comprehension of Kierkegaard, however, being a retrospect into the finished stage and a prospect into future activity. 3. The religious and religious philosophical period, with occasional literary efforts. 4. Morsels to the receipts from a now avowedly religious author. Here are such masterly things as edifying addresses, 1847. The works of love, 1847. Christian addresses, 1847. The viewpoint for my author activity, posthumously published, 1859. Two ethical religious minor essays, 1849. The sickness unto death, 1849. 5. Exercise in Christianity, 1850. Concerning my author activity, 1851. Judge for yourselves. Posthumous, 1876. For self-trial, 1852. And others. The style of this period assumes a deep, rich, sober, and organ-like character in harmony with its religious themes, but off and on purely literary writings, remind of a former period in brilliancy. Even a dramatic essay was pinned during this stage, the crisis and a crisis, in the life of an actress. A clever treatment of the question whether an actress is at her best at the first admired debut or in her histrionic maturity, as always a work crammed with suggestiveness. During three years, to the close of 1854, reigned silence, except for new additions of former works. The warrior awaited his orders from his superior. 4. The ecclesiastical denunciatory period. The extreme consequence of his battle for the ideals. Footnote. Rudin. End of footnote. Beginning with the death of Bishop Minster, 1854, when his powerful, ruthless attack on the official Christianity of the State Church began, in which campaign he succumbed physically. Memorable is here the pamphlet. This shall be said, then be it said. May 1855. His ultimatum not to the State Church, but to the secure, impersonal Christianity of the official Church. Central, however, during this time, is the series of nine pamphlets called The Moment. The last part of which he sent forth while on his deathbed. The style now has become inflammatory. It sounds like the fevered ringing of firebells. Fearful, invective, almost reminding of that of the prophets of Israel, on the corrupt State Church of their ages, attack as the formal rush on the batteries of a besieged fortress, exclamations, interrogations, burning sentences, and words marked this last stage. A man of the people to whom I once read from Kierkegaard aptly described the trenchant character of his style by one telling phrase. There is a pistol shot in every sentence. This inimitably pictures in general both the thought and the style of his always surprising and unfailing the unique writing. It applies literally to his last period when every newspaper article and pamphlet, he wrote no book during this time, is like the rattle of musketree again and again engulfed in the roar of cannon batteries, all under the strategic direction of his even now inwardly calm and thoughtful mind. Kierkegaard was too personalized and intellect ever to become inwardly crazed. He had moreover the commendable habit of keeping his most uncompromising and personal polemics in his drawer for months, even up to a year before publication. In fact he glorified in this self-restraint over against hasty critics of his supposedly hasty writings, all through life he played cat and mouse with the critics, and only nipped them with his superior wit and irony and his home thrust at conscience when they were about to escape. In the noble sense of the word there was a streak of the Jacob spirit in him which he organized into his pedagogy true to his own conscience, but keeping vital secrets to himself and to his father-confessor, his thought diary, now included in posthumous papers 1833 to 1855 of a luminous publication. Either or his first great and most known work is a landmark in Danish literature, both as to matter and manner. Its companion was stages on the path of life at the end of the ascetic period. Harold Hoffting of Copenhagen says of our author, Kierkegaard's importance for the Danish spiritual life lies in his emphasis upon concentration about the personal life and its needs over against the absorption by imagination and speculation, which was distinctive of the Romantic Age. The epic-making either or issued as all his ascetic works, with depth of meaning, purposely were by a pseudonym, Victor Aramita, Victor the Hermit, i.e. Victor, namely of himself, and Hermit. The Lonely Advocate of Personality presents two of Kierkegaard's so-called stages of life, the ascetic and the ethical, the third, the religious, coming in later writings, and all three taken together in stages, etc. Either or consists of the ascetic A's and the ethicist B's papers. A series of brief, luminous flashes from the ascetic soul-life open the work, the diapsomata, which are detached fragments. Here is the first. What is a poet, an unhappy being who hides deep agonies in his heart, but whose lips are so formed, that when the sigh and the cry stream out over them, they sound like beautiful music? It is with him, as with the unhappy ones, who in the oaks of Phalaris were tortured at a slow fire. Their cry could not reach the tyrant's ears to terrify him. To him it sounded as lovely music. And men crowd about the bard, and say to him, Sing soon again! That is, may new sufferings martyr your soul, and may your lips be formed as before, for the cry would only anguish us, but the music is lovely. And the critics step forward and say, That's right, so it must be according to the rules of ascetics. Well, now, of course, a critic is exactly like a poet, only that he does not have the agonies in his heart and the music on the lips. You see, therefore, I would rather be swine-herd on Amagerbo and be understood by the swine than the poet, and be misunderstood by the critics. After these rhapsodical outbursts, lyrical, witty, full of abandon comes a series of ascetic papers of exquisite literary form, such as the immediate erotic stages, or the erotic in music, a treatise on Mozart's Don Juan, in which the passionate power in music is described, and the renowned and debated diary of the seducer Johannes, where a cultured gallant day by day records how he systematically fosters, as he styles it, Cordelia, for supreme sensualities that shall unite the carnal with the most refined intellectual. Kierkegaard takes the word aesthetic as applied to a type of life in its Greek sense of immediate perception, in which the soul loses itself in objects not itself, of higher or lower order. He would convey by it the idea of a care-free or a passionate and plastic surrender to unbounded enjoyment, so gained as to leave full freedom for its repetition in the next moment, an ideal exhaustion that does not exhaust. The personality idea is plainly not in this manner of life. B's papers, the ethical life, the balanced mind, yet all of a secular order, these papers treat of the ascetic validity of marriage, the balance between the ascetic and the ethical in the development of personality. Finally, with deep pedagogical significance on our author's part, B sends A his ultimatum, a sermon by a supposed country pastor in Jutland, on the edificatory thought that before God we are all in the wrong, even the ethical B. The last sentence of which, and the book, is intended as a secret hidden catch on succeeding writings. Quote, only that truth which edifies is the truth for you. A thought that makes the question of truth a personal one, not merely for imagination, or speculation, or earth-bound morality, but an eternal one. Three months afterwards, a little religious booklet, two edifying addresses appeared, under his own signature, as being an approximative expression of the author's real self. The two parts of either or are in their style as different as the stages of life portrayed in psychological literary form, and have such a wealth of ideas and exuberance of fancy as almost to exhaust the reader's receptivity. Kierkegaard must be read slowly and with patient thoughtfulness, yet his passionate intellect and infective imagination leave one no peace to all be read, provided we have sympathy with his burning theme of life, personality, and in its abiding type, Christian personality, as in the religious period. Toward this, even the ascetic products pedagogically tend. I, this Danish Socrates, unfolds his whole preparatory activity under the form of a deep and lofty irony, as he understands irony. Quote, irony is the unity of ethical passion, which in inwardness, parenthesis, in agate, in parenthesis, endlessly accentuates its own ego in relation to the ethical demand, and of culture, which in outwardness, endlessly abstracts from its own ego, as a finite thing, along with other finite things. This abstraction affects that no one notices the first, the accent of the ego, and right therein lies the art, end quote, including unscientific postscript. Either or never touches on distinctively Christian concepts, but operates with purely psychological terms. The religious ultimate purpose is inhibited in expression, though hovering over all as an unseen guiding genius. After either or, Kierkegaard step by step proceeds toward the higher ideas, leading on to the Christian concepts, but always in literary, psychological form, and always by pseudonyms, chosen with deep significance, because these writings expressed not his own standpoint. They were to give forth truth by the method of indirect impartation, compelling the reader to think, live, act by personal choice, not by tradition, authority, nay, not even by the authority of a writer's literary renown, indirect impartation, being a pedagogical way of fostering a personal existence. In fear and trembling, the religious is faintly shadowed forth, as over against a secularly ethical of B. Here is presented the collision between the secularly ethical and the absolute, exemplified in Abraham's sacrifice. In repetition, also means taking back, faith is not habit or resignation, but the individual seeks in liberty to gain back the lost temporal, and thereby himself, from a new standpoint within a new sphere of life. Rudin Philosophical fragments approaches the Christian problem, asking, can truth be learned by socratically awakening the reminiscences, or is an historical revelation necessary, the absolute paradox? Can there be given an historical point of departure for our eternal salvation? The gigantic masterpiece of thought, severest of works, the concept of anguish, brings an analysis of the psychological presupposition for sin, and of the corresponding psychological result of sin, by Kierkegaard called anguish. Then, in stages on the path of life, all three stages, the ascetic, ethical, and religious, came in. The author's purpose being the picture of a concrete personality, the generally religious sphere, before going to the directly Christian in theory. A work so attractive in richness of thought that it well nigh surpasses either or. Such exquisite portrayal of human love in its main forms will rarely be met with. But as in either or, Kierkegaard did not intend to urge a choice, as little as does he do so in his writing. For the religious stage here psychologically portrayed, as always in connection with human love in its many types, has yet no Christian content, but is of an Old Testament type. Christian ideas are set forth in the second great period, the religious, whereby spiritual addresses genuinely deep and lyrically beautiful at times, but often dialectical in construction. By Christian psychological analysis and by theological essays, he develops his supreme idea of Christendom, men's interleague journals, in free English paraphrase, the personalizing of Christianity. But space forbids a review of his works in detail, only we must not forego the remark that to think his later period less vital than the ascetic means a total misapprehension of the cumulative development toward the great climax of Kierkegaard's entire activity. His literature and its accompaniment in his life and conduct has architectural unity. Is dominated by one huge purpose, first indirectly suggested with growing intensity, the ascetic, then profoundly exhibited an ever-riching fullness, the religious, and finally uncompromisingly insisted on, with almost tragical ethic emphasis, the polemical. In this last phase, both the sublime truth and the inherent frailty of his life work find concrete embodiment. However, as in all things relating to this mysterious personage, in so so radically complex a manner as even then in the finale, to necessitate a personal conscious choice, sure to enrich the earnest student of this closing drama in a great career. As the personalizing of Christianity surpasses the mere ascetic stage of soul life, so does the religious authorship the ascetic as to content, though for bellic trystical enjoyment the ascetic naturally leads. He meant then to take hold of men by the vulnerable point, pleasure, in its lower and in its more refined forms, and gradually to foster his time to ever-worthier concepts, finally to leave it by a free choice no longer born of dead habit with Christ in the New Testament. Even before Kierkegaard wrote either or and its glittering analysis of Johannes the seducer, our author had come to personal Christian faith as evidence his diary confessions and his main published works. He wrote either or with deep consciousness of his responsibility, three months afterwards, while Denmark was a stir with either or and its glittering pictures of the ascetic soul life and his fame flared on the heavens. He published a serious religious writing, named Two Addresses for Edification, but now under his own signature, a note full of pedagogical meaning. By this he intended to convey that the religious was his real self, and his ascetic authorship but a gold-banded diamond-studded scabbard to the plain sword of Christian truth, about to be drawn at the right moment. These religious writings in the ascetic period are partly indirect impartation of psychological form, though to all purposes devoutly spiritual, with the content constantly increasing in spirituality and pedagogically moving on, they too, toward the Christian authorship. A Danish pastor of our country, in a conversation reported to me, once called Kierkegaard, Denmark's Ezekiel, he wrote, but like the ancient prophet, he acted out truths in indirect socratic form. Kierkegaard's interpretive and pedagogical conduct, that often took on ironic character, was part of his activity. During the eleven months while writing either or, he was constantly in society. That loose's fine wit and comic sense, promenaded among the gentlemen on the boulevards, went to the theater regularly for a few minutes every evening. Men were heard to say, a flippant man, that Kierkegaard! They were thus to be compelled to think of what he said, not of him. When at home he meditated on scripture and Lutheran devotional literature, till day and night often, mercilessly toward his health. Chronic insomnia attacked him as a result of such strenuousness. During the second great period, the religious, his life was retired, quiet, in harmony with his heart's deep desire. But lest men should now say, how religious Kierkegaard has become, he wrote theatrical criticisms to puzzle and to call forth personal conviction and to martyr superficiality to death. For he considered, that if a self-conscious conceited reflective generation should be brought to terms, receive a shock shaking it at its foundations, there was necessary on the part of the champion of saving truth, what Kierkegaard calls double reflectivity. The conscious beneath the self-conscious. He must have inexperience, knowledge of the soul states of that philosophically self-satisfied, aesthetically pampered, morally phariseeical, and sentimentally religious age. But get beneath it all, in an awe-surpassing reflectivity, double reflectivity, as Socrates in his day, and as Christ, incomparably, among Pharisees and Sadducees. Oh, and when we remember what depths of tenderness were Kierkegaard's of love and of comfort for the sad and stricken, which his private life so fully illustrates, what a sublime conception was his complex, self-consuming pedagogy. Back of his intricate, spying intellect stood his simple Christian heart in full control of his tempestuous career. He was odd, angular, mysterious, wounding right often, yet the one passion of his life, never, never forgotten, was his countryman's spiritual welfare. A man to be loved with a love that covereth a multitude of sins, a heart bleeding from the hunter's sting never panted more for refreshing brooks than Kierkegaard. The ironical, dialectical Kierkegaard, for human and for divine love, and love divine or love excelling, gave him fortitude for his mission. There are four distinct crises in his life. Chief of these, and determining the inner trend and spirit of his career, is his conversion at the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven. To sow dialectical a nature it meant a painful struggle. In his diary notes on Sunday, April 22, 1838, we read, If Christ shall enter in to dwell in me, it must come about according to the superscription above the gospel of the day in the almanac. Christ enters in through closed doors. Kierkegaard had some few years before doubtlessly tried a life of gaiety, to what extent may be impossible to learn, even from his own confessions, as he belongs to that rare class of men who rather accuse than excuse themselves. Later on diary notes tell of spiritual victory. A man with his firm religious convictions could hardly fail at some day to collide with the mummified religiousness of his land and beloved church at that period. The second crisis, and the most humanly tragical, which wounded him for life, but in divine providence became the human goad to his authorship, especially during the ascetic period, was the breaking of his engagement. Theological readers will hear part in some untheological information. On the 10th of September 1840, when he was twenty-seven, he sought the hand of a maiden his direct opposite. She was sunny, carefree, inexperienced. A child it appears. In October the next year he broke his vow to her, with awful sense of his responsibility, amid terrible anguish of heart which trembled on throughout his life, like the echo of a sad song that cannot die. He did this out of love and pity for his beloved, fearing the tragical consequences of his deep melancholy inherited from his father. Bondes suggests, on what grounds I know not other physical reasons. The man whose entire being cried for love, and who had so sensitive a conscience as Kierkegaard, took this step in Christian seriousness. Search his career and writings as closely as we will. Never can we say it was done in levity, or from coldness, for he was deep in love with her, and loved her till he died. His experience stands as an instructive example of what ethics calls the collision of conflicting duties. To spare her some of the violence of the shark he, the unfortunate psychologist, began amidst nameless ache of heart by psychologically trying to lead her to the conviction that she did not love him. Meanwhile his own heart was breaking. The broken engagement made his genius live, act, produce, as often in life, even in the history of some eminent men in the church's annals. It became the human incitement to fill out with colossal toil the aching void in a heart parched with thirst for love. He always called himself memories unhappy lover, the suggestive model of his life. In the ascetic writings, even in his communion addresses, his mind keeps love as a paradigm of life, in which he can teach the present day preacher deep lessons on illustration. If I should describe his style briefly, I would speak of the lyrical dialectics of Kierkegaard. This lyrical element so full of wistful beauty, with those long lingering cadences in thought and words, with that indescribable aching loveliness and profound charm, has this self-crushed love to thank for its awakening. Gossipers in Copenhagen vermified him for his step, but in his own conscience before God he never for any length of time doubted its moral validity. That censure may rest on him for ever entering into the compact, will, however, always seem an irrefutable ethical feeling on the part of even his staunchest admirers. For he was of responsible age, and she was but a child. 11 days before his engagement crisis, September 29, 1841, he held his disputation for the philosophical doctor's degree, then called Magister Artrium. Ten days after the crisis he received his doctorate. What a rush of events! On the 3rd of July, the previous year, he had taken his theological examination out of piety toward his father's memory rather than from inclination. He now intended first to satisfy his author cravings, and by ascetic and other publications, weaken the conscience of his land, then to become pastor. Again and again he is about to take the holy order, but a third great crisis comes on. It stayed his ordination. The times of dissolution in Europe since the July Revolution, 1830, had also influenced Denmark. A sordid, unprincipled spirit ruled. Its unbridled exponent at this time in Denmark was the comic paper Corsarin. The pirate. High or low were at its mercy. A Jew was editor. Even Kierkegaard was ludicrously caricatured in his doctor's hat, the old umbrella bell-shaped Prince Albert Quote, one trouser shorter than the other. Kierkegaard had resented a commendatory but flippant criticism of one of his works. He decided to draw the vengeance of the fear Corsarin upon himself and break its power. This was in 1842, when he was thirty-two years of age. He succeeded. All Copenhagen was by Corsarin incited to deride Kierkegaard. Even the street boys pointed at his garment. In church they eyed him up and down. University students played the farce, Sorin Kirk. Half a year later Corsarin went out of business. Kierkegaard had irritated it to exhaust its venom and tyrannic force. Moreover, just now our author was in his authorship ready to leave the ascetic style and to begin the religious. Christian rather. By the war with Corsarin he would be a witness to the truth, a willing martyr to his holy cause. A new side of the dialectical pedagogy in his intricate career. What an insight into men's heart he gained during this fearful ordeal. We see it reflected in his two leading religious writings. The sickness unto death, and exercise in Christianity, and in parallel portions of his diary. The final crisis must come. It came. Even more deeply ever more stringently, Kierkegaard emphasized a personal Christian faith and life. He did this dogmatically speaking into the extreme in certain ethical features. Even lapsing into some grave ethical errors as to marriage and on the opus operatum of infant baptism. The state church clergy, with the alienizing Professor Martinson in the lead, ignored him. He called the louder. They diplomatically went on and paid as little attention as possible to his piercing outcries, though stung to death by them. Then on the 30th of January 1854 Bishop Minster died. Professor Martinson in his eulogy called him a serving link in the holy chain of witnesses to the truth from the days of the apostles to our days. Let a prelate who viewed from the standpoint of a Christian cross-bearer had lived so diplomatically avoiding the agonies of a real witness in an age of so pitiable spirituality should be placed in a line with the martyr witnesses called forth all of Kierkegaard's vehement resentment. In a campaign, the like of which Denmark perhaps never has experienced, he has sailed the new primate and the official Christianity. When the authorities still relentlessly clenched the status quo, he sent forth the awful challenge of the pamphlet. This must be said, then be it said. The tragical charge on the batteries of an indifferent conservatism grown secure and forgetful of Christian ideals. Here he calls upon the reader to leave the public worship, in its present condition, until the New Testament Christianity's claims be recognized. Tennyson in his lyric, the poet, says of freedom, and when she spake, her words did gather thunder as they ran, and so did the activity of Kierkegaard. Nay, the plows at last discharged their lightnings, and struck with a deafening clap the gay and unthinking masses, and the determined opponents of his principle of spiritual seriousness. It has been well said, repelled light becomes lightning, so with Kierkegaard. He tried to bring home literary, national, philosophical, and Christian truth. To most of it the time said no. The Hegelian philosophical school, with its love of massive abstraction, scorned his socratic labors for the cause of personality. The naive and conceited literary leaders could sympathize little with his rich, orchestral-like style, and his ironic warfare against the literary properties of those transition decades. Demagogical politicians had little patience with his honest political conservatism, and churchmen were forever on the tender hooks of anxiety from his searching scrutiny of impersonal religiousness. All the world is against a great man for a while, and so the resistless light of Kierkegaard flashed back with scathing energy. As always, in rejecting they could not escape annoyingly to accept of him, even of him whom they naively considered simply as climbing the treadmill of subjectivity. Kierkegaard himself grew in this dorm of principles during his life. A given age cannot create a genius, but it can reinforce him, and it can fetch forth all the latent powers in him. Tees out of its den the lion of personality, by lending opportunities for the complex inclinations, needs, and longings of genius, that too often remain hidden in men of a fine mind, born in less strenuous conditions. The ironical invective which up to 1854, at Minster's death, had stood in the controlled service of Kierkegaard's warm heart and marvelous intellect, from then on became rather pessimistic, a direct invective where formerly there was indirect impartation, yet thundering forth irresistible truth. The marvel is that in his private spiritual life during this stage there seems to have been an inward peace and a trust in the blood and the merit of Christ, as his diary so often evidence. In the midst of this supreme crisis he died, writing on his very deathbed, Dan Marquette stood before the tribunal of one of the most powerful witnesses of the truth known in her history, a genuine man, a grand, though puzzling and uncompromising soul, even in all struggles consumed by an unfeigned love for his people and for Christ's church. The white rose exhales its odorous sweetness, as well to the face of the storm as to the still zephyr of evening. Kierkegaard had lived long enough to develop a fruitful educational movement in the rich sense of the word. He had found time to print himself out almost beyond his heart's satisfaction. The strategy of his life, with its masterful field tactics, led on toward a long-prepared closing attack. His call to the nation has been heard unmistakably, unselfishly. Time alone would work the rest. Should he have lived longer, and the opposition continued, he might have entirely lost his remarkable self-possession, which he actually did in danger toward the close. The deep inner pedagogy of his work might have wholly yielded to fierce derision out of all control of his loving heart. Kierkegaard died at the right moment. The problems of the Kierkegaard career are many and serious. From his personal life, how, after all allowances, could so conscientious a Christian man break his vow of love? There is again the interesting literary question, how the romanticist Kierkegaard could be an open revolt against romanticism, particularly in its literary and philosophical expressions. Then his intricate but fruitful idea of indirect and direct impartation of truth. A Christian form of the Socratic Mayutic comes in for renewed close study as deeply affecting the question of Christian personality. Kierkegaard, if ever a man, was a pedagogue of Christian personality. It may be doubted that his superior herein exists in all the range of modern literature. But was personality as such his eye-mark, so Professor Hoftingholz, or Christian personality, was he, as it seems in the closing stage, actually an ascetic enemy of culture, himself a man of such exquisite attainments? What shall be thought of the extreme fierceness of his closing agitation, which in the series, the moment, one through nine, like a devouring conflagration, scorches the mind and heart almost? Does it indicate a worthy historical estimate of Kierkegaard dogmatically to classify him in the genus Religious Individualism? As do Martinson, footnote Ethics and footnote, Charlene Volts, footnote Review April 1905, and footnote and others. There remains other points, but one complex problem will often engage our attention. Did he write and work by a conscious, though not in detail, elaborated plan from the outset? Or are brand is and Hofting correct in maintaining that his literature is only his own development, a sort of nature product of his gradually unfolding genius? A few words on this last question. There certainly is a deep psychological truth in Hofting's words. Kierkegaard was enough of a psychologist to know that an ascetic and intellectual production, in large style, cannot be called forth with full consciousness and as a means toward an extraneous end. Again and again Kierkegaard says, quote, The whole of my author activity is, as I often have said, at the same time my own development. Footnote, Viewpoint, page 113, and footnote. But, Mark, at the same time, he denies that he, from, quote, The first moment has had a total view of the whole author activity's dialectical structure, end, quote. Footnote, Point of View, page 55, end footnote. From such statements Brandes then proceeds to deny any definite conscious purpose to his authorship, and holds that the religious period began because a religious experience suddenly crossed the ascetic path of his life and authorship. Kierkegaard absolutely refutes these inferences. In the self-biographical The Point of View of my Authorship, written in 1846, just at the end of the ascetic period, he solemnly aversed that he was a religious author from the beginning, and that his works were written with a religious purpose. Quote, When I began on either or, I was as deeply influenced by the religious as I on the whole ever have been. End, quote, he states in 1846 that he, three months after either or, brought out two edifying addresses under his own signature, gives, as he also adds, a clear hint of the double campaign carried on. The ascetic writings of his pseudonyms were the veiled Socratic pedagogy on toward a direct emphasis of what he calls his original heart problem. Quote, to become a Christian. End, quote. Footnote, View Point, page 72, end footnote. To say that he later on in his authorship became the religious man, and therefore then a religious author denies his own confessions, the inner structure of his personal life, and the marvelous unity in the spirit of his literature, and in its dialectical architecture, considered in its broad outline. Utterances in the earliest writings convincingly indicate that he had an original secret purpose in mind. Why throw utter confusion into the Kierkegaard activity? Why empty plain facts of their plain sense, that an ill-begotten and ill-applied psychological theory of modern evolution perforce be maintained in honor? Nay, let the actual experiences of this superb personality, genius, and Christian witness remain intact. Critical theories are anyway a few thousand miles in the rear of the genius, well-housing of Genesis and Isaiah, brandes of Kierkegaard. In an analytical age, let there be a little more of true hero worship. I end of recognition of the divine in history. The contribution of Kierkegaard to the Danish language, literature, philosophical and religious thought, and his startling importance for the awakening and development of personality, above all of Christian personality, make it imperative on all thinking men to aid in making him known also in our America. Therefore we have called attention to this bright star, on the heavens of northern European thought. If church historians and theological reviewers would state clearly what Kierkegaard's contribution is, and be less concerned with the fact that he did not say or do all things, their picture of him would be less a caricature of the real man. He was no pastor, quote, I am without authority, end, quote, he cries aloud repeatedly. He was a layman with a voice of prophetic quality. The most we have hoped for by this preparatory review has been to approximate a point de-view for the complex character and activity of soaring Kierkegaard. That indeed is far less easy than by a formula simply to register him among religious individualists and then proceed to the very light task of demolishing individualism as his countryman has done in Christian ethics. The unique Danish thinker becomes a subject worthy of study and reflection by all pastors and thinking laymen, only when the viewpoint of Kierkegaard has been livingly appreciated. To imitate him were ruination, to learn of him enriches and deepens our vocation as pastors and as Christians. In the wake of the present deluge of sociological thought will again come a renewed heroic struggle for the cause of individuality when our deign may be one vantage point for orientation. The individual will never tolerate to be lost in society much as his full happiness depends on finding his place in the organism of life. Original geniuses as that humble prince of his tribe, the theosophist Jacob Bomi, most famous of cobblers, that wonderful goldmine of thought and speculation, the independent Catholic philosopher Franz von Bader, before him Johann Georg Haman, the Magus of the North, Soren Kierkegaard of Denmark, Apostle of Christian Personality and Christian Subjectivity, and a few like names, when intelligently studied, exercise a fundamentally culturing and deepening influence on one's inmost nature. In them we touch personality at its profoundest depths and in its most amazing originality, awakening in our soul a faint anun of the unspeakable divine personality. Christian personality in pastors and layfolk is to be an eye mark of Christian nurture. Luther remains master of direct presentation of the truth. Kierkegaard, peer of Christian indirect impartation by a Socratic pedagogy. They are two complementary types of mind. In the growing complex, subtle, ratio-sinate trend of modern life, the bold simplicity of Luther's manly directness needs Kierkegaard's invincible double reflectivity and keen appreciation of the refined intricacies of mind and life as a healthful corrective. Times change and we Christians must change with them in all things somewhat, except in the faith that saves. End of Soren Kierkegaard in his Life and Literature by Eddolf Holt, published in 1906. The transformation of northeastern Germany through the German-Polish Wars, the history of Scandinavia to the second half of the 15th century by Hans Putz from the history of old nations from earliest times. Volume 10, The Age of Renaissance, translated under the supervision of John Henry Wright. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, read by Piotr Natter. At the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, Germany underwent not only a grave internal crisis, but also experienced the first territorial losses which made the maintenance of its former central position impossible. In the north, the kingdom had to abandon its hegemony over the Scandinavian states, and in the south it lost Milan. On the other hand, Germany was drawn into complications with its eastern Slavonic neighbors, with the result that it succumbed to the anti-Germanic policy which ruled in those parts. The House of Luxembourg, above all, was responsible for having brought Germany to this pass. The Luxemburgers made Bohemia and its dependencies, Lusatia and Silesia, more and more independent of the realm. Their policy centered entirely in the east because of Sigismund's possession of the Hungarian crown. The national forces which they used there to further the interests of their house soon got beyond their control and rose against the eastern districts once conquered and civilized by the Germans. Thus it happened that, while the west was filled with the din of the Hundred Years' War, the old conflict between the Germans and Slavs raged in the northeast of central Europe. About a century had passed since the overthrow of the last great revolt of the Prussians. It was the zenith of the state of the Teutonic Order, in which, however, after the disease of Wienerich von Kniprode, the signs of decay forthwith appeared. For the change which the cessation of religious wars brought about in the whole position of the Order naturally reacted on the relations to its subjects, who did not mean to have the rights and privileges which had been granted them on settling in the domain of the Order curtailed. Add to this the rise of a great foreign power through the Union of Poland and Lithuania. Now the prime condition of the future of the state of the Order was the recovery of Prussia and the conquest of the Baltic coast. Meanwhile the Teutonic Order still maintained its predominant position abroad. Under Konrad von Jungingen, 1393 to 1407, the Order seized the island of Gotland, which the dethroned Danish king, Albert of Mecklenburg, held in forfeit. The knights put an end to the piracy of the victualing brothers on the island, and thus gained a maritime position which ensured them a decisive voice in northern affairs. But internal dissensions already invaded their ranks. The nobility of Kulmland had formed the Lizard League, aides boomed, in 1397 for the protection of their rights against the aggression of the Order. Already the cities considered similar measures to avert the damage inflicted on their trade by the commercial operations of the Order. About this time the national agitation, attendant on the accession of Jagiello of Lithuania to the Polish throne as what is of the second, increased anti-German sentiment in Poland. The diplomatic arts of Zigizmund, who tried to repress Poland, and at the same time make the Order subservient to his family policy, proved a failure. Nor could they prevent the outbreak of open war. The bone of contention between the Order and Poland was the new march of Brandenburg, and the district around Dresen. This latter was the only means of communication between the Order and Germany. Hostilities broke out in 1409, which stopped only for a short time when Zigizmund mediated a truce. In the spring of 1410 a terrible national war broke out in the northeast of Germany. Under the leadership of Władysław II and the great Duke Witold, the Poles, Lithuanians, Russians and Tartars, reinforced by Bohemian mercenaries, invaded the lands of the Order. Its grandmaster Ulrich von Jungingen, 147-1410, was at thorn with German reinforcements when he heard that the enemy was marching straight on Brandenburg, wasting the country far and wide. By a hurried night march he proceeded thence and found the enemy on June 15th, 1410, encamped on a ridge near Tannenberg. Forthwith he prepared for battle, but the enemy refused to accept it until a formal challenge and the urgent demand of Witold induced the wavering Władysław to decide on the battle. The armies clashed with terrible force in the intervening ravine. The Poles could not withstand the charge of the German cavalry and wavered. A fresh charge rode down the Lithuanians on the left flank and drove them in headlong flight. But the pursuit made a gap in the ranks of the German army. Into this opening the Poles hurled themselves, forcing the enemy to fall back. When the pursuing part of the Germans returned, they were themselves met and hard-pressed by a superior force which had followed them. At this critical moment the grandmaster, with a picked body of men, made a sudden attack on the center of the opposing army, which the Polish king and his train held. A Polish nobleman saved the life of his king, whereupon Youngingen and his men were surrounded and cut down. Heavy as this loss was, the defeat of the order was decided only when the reserve of Prussian noblemen, who belonged mainly to the Lizard League, deserted their banner and left the field. Thereupon the whole German army took to flight. But the Poles and Lithuanians drove them into the surrounding marshes and fence and cut down great numbers. The number of dead and captured was very large. The strength of the Teutonic order was broken for the time being. Had the victors followed up their victory, the whole of Prussia must have fallen into the hands of the Poles. But the wavering and timid king was not the man to act immediately. Under the circumstances it was fatal to the order that the majority of its members and subjects, thinking its rule had come to an end, rivaled one another in forcing the king to take steps for which he himself lacked the courage. The commanders surrendered their castles to him only to leave the country, and in some cases to carry off the treasures of the castles. The nobility and towns hastened to pay homage to their new lord in order to be rewarded by rights and privileges, which they could never have wrung from their former ruler. If the castle of Marienburg fell likewise, the destruction of the order was inevitable. The commander of Schweiz, Henri van Plauen, recognized this. He hurried with his men to Marienburg, to which he drew the garrisons of the castles which had not fallen as yet. But his four thousand men did not suffice for the defense. Therefore Plauen had the city partly burned and housed the inhabitants safely in the castle. After vain negotiations, Władysław II began the siege. But although the desertion from the order went on, Marienburg held out. Infectious diseases broke out in the Polo-Lithuanian camp. Add to this the growing estrangement between the king and the Lithuanians. Furthermore, Germany finally took steps for the protection of its frontier. At the end of September 1410, Władysław raised the siege and withdrew pillaging to the south. Thereupon the order rose anew. The restless activity of Plauen, who had been made governor, and the aid of the German reinforcements, succeeded in reconquering more and more of the lost territory. As Władysław remained inactive, the disappointed renegades returned in increasing numbers to their rightful lord. Thus Plauen, meanwhile made grand master, could make a piece at Thorn in February 1411, which was unexpectedly favourable, but it settled none of the contested territorial questions. On the other hand the order was burdened with financial indemnities which it could not pay. It had to pay six million groats pro rata for the ransom of captives. The exhausted country could only raise such a sum by straining its taxing powers to the outmost. Nobody felt the burden more than those who had discarded the Polish allegiance for the old one. These circles again contemplated disloyalty. The renewed desertion of Danzig was thwarted by its commander, a brother of Henry von Plauen, who punished it by the unlawful execution of the two ringleaders. The issue of worthless notes and the levy of a general tax by the order only increased the discontent. That gave its old enemy, the Lizard League, ample opportunity for constant agitation. Withal the order was at sorts points with Władysław about the execution of the terms of the peace. He raised exceptions here and misinterpreted there only to have some sort of pretext for a renewal of hostilities. The grandmaster saw through his schemes. He recognized that only the quickest possible outbreak of war could draw the order out of the threatening snare. But the prospect of success depended entirely upon the eager support of the order's subjects. Plauen must ensure that, first of all, he offered his subjects a part in the administration of affairs by establishing a general council, Landesat. It was to consist of twenty representatives of the nobility and twenty-seven of the cities, and was to meet annually at Elbing. The council was to have a share in the regulation of finances and coinage, the levying and assessing of taxes and dues. Besides, the country was to hold it responsible in part for its administration. No one can gain say that this was a happy thought on the part of Plauen. However, the innovation met with determined resistance from the order. Quite apart from it, the knights grumbled at the severity with which the grandmaster tried to restore discipline and even accused him of aiming at royal power. He had already been forced to punish several conspirators unmercifully. Now he threatened to secure his subjects from the tyranny of the members of the order. As a result, the latter rebelled openly against its head. The very moment the Polish war broke out again. Smarting under the punishment with which the grandmaster had chastised him for insubordination, the marshal of the order, Michael Küchmeister of Sternbach led the insurrection. At a meeting of the chapter of the order in Marienburg on October 14th, 1413, he and his adherents brought a formal charge against Plauen, chiefly on the ground of his having established the general council. By a violent breach of the law, the general chapter deposed him. But as his guilt was not proved, it could only banish him as commander to the Engelsburg, one of the most miserable and distant castles of the order. But the leaders of this coup d'état did not feel safe so long as Plauen was free. In May 1414 they had him arrested on the fictitious grounds of treasonable correspondence with Poland. The charge was never approved, and consequently the inevitable punishment never executed. But for ten years the hero was held in miserable captivity as a prisoner of state. Finally, the grandmaster, Paul von Ruzdor, released him. He was made order, it est superior of Lohstadt in Samland, a non-conventional castle of the order. There the martyr died at the close of 1429. Dire vengeance fell upon the order for the injustice it had done its last great hero and statesman. The Polish war continued, though it was not formally declared. The frontiers suffered severely. Trade and commerce were greatly damaged, thus increasing the discontent of the disaffected subjects of the Teutonic Order. The Council of Constance, which had drawn the matter before its tribunal, did not dare to decide against Władysław and Witold, whose assistance it needed against the Turks. Zygizmunt persisted in his vacillating policy. Consequently Poland could make ever greater claims on the order. It demanded the restoration of Pomeran, Mazovia and Kulmland. That amounted to a dissolution of the Teutonic Order. Even Zygizmunt rejected those demands in his arbitrarment, pronounced at Breslau in 1420. The voluntary abdication of Michael Küchmeister in 1422 was a tardy, but nevertheless the best amount honourable that could be made, Henry von Plauen. It spoke still more for Plauen's ability that Küchmeister's successor, the Grandmaster Paul von Ruzdor, 1422 to 1441 adopted the policy which Plauen had inaugurated. Of course it was not successful. Ruzdor only caused greater confusion and gave the Poles and his disaffected subjects every opportunity of playing into each other's hands. The renewed war with Poland had to be stopped because the Prussian states refused to participate. The peace of Melnoze, which resulted in 1423, caused the order more than Galindia and Samaitia. It contained the fatal clause that the subjects of whichever party broke the treaty should be free from allegiance to the party concerned. This left the Prussian states the power to rebel with impunity and to unite with Poland whenever they chose. The same strained relations to Poland kept on while the land was ravaged in 1443 by Husayt in Rhodes. On Władysław's death the next year his successor Władysław III brought about a so-called eternal peace at Breszcz in 1435. But it not only cost the order some territory but also hurt its position with the Polish bishops while it cut off certain of its resources. Violent internal dissensions did not tend to improve the condition of the order. The knights were at one in absolutely rejecting the concessions which the Grand Master made his subjects. This removed every hope of the restoration of eternal peace. Self-help was the last resort of the estates. In 1439 delegates from Elbing, Torn and Kurm met to discuss the project of common action for the improvement of their condition. Naturally the nobility did not hold back, a lively agitation sprang up. In 1440 the cities of the west chiefly made a league at Marianwerder for the common defense of their rights against the arbitrary rule of the order. The nobility joined the league, which soon united the majority of Prussian estates against their territorial lord. In vain an influential nobleman Hans von Beisen tried to mediate. He finally became the leader of the league himself. He was well fitted for his part on account of his connection with the Polish court. As he was unable to break up the league, Paul von Ruzdorf confirmed it. He declared his willingness to have all abuses examined and remedied by representatives of both parties. The estates had completely triumphed over the order. The latter itself charged the Grand Master with treachery, so there was nothing for Ruzdorf but to abdicate. His successor Konrad von Erlichschałem, 1441 to 1449, had to adapt his bearing to the will of the majority of the order. His reintroduction of poundage, attacks on the pound of important merchandise, to further the order's trade brought upon him not only the enmity of the Russian towns, but also of the Hanseatic League. Finally he was forced to make concessions again. To make that impossible for the future, the officials of the order, made Konrad's nephew, Louis, 1450 to 1467, submit to a formal capitulation at his accession in open defiance of its statutes. It obliged him to consult the officials and commanders of the order in all weighty matters, and concerned especially all matters touching the league. But now the estates too wished to make their recognition of the Grand Master conditional on his confirming their league and remedying their grievances. Louis von Erlichschausen had to submit to this demand likewise. Not until he had solemnly sworn to do away with certain of the worst abuses did the estates acknowledge their allegiance to him. But the form of their oath of fidelity was of their own choosing. Neither the Grand Master, however, nor the order intended to fulfill the obligations assumed. They used every means to break up the league. The cities and noble members united them more closely, and took the first step towards securing the aid of Poland. The order also sought help. In its extremity it applied to both the emperor and the pope. A papal legate appeared in Prussia to dissolve the league in the name of the church. That only embittered the opposition. The order played a very sorry role by bringing an action against the Prussian league in the imperial court. Naturally the estates sent representatives to the court, but at the same time they applied for help and offered submission to the Polish court. In spite of many scruples, Władysław finally acceded to their proposal. Meanwhile the Prussian estates had mastered their forces when at last the imperial judgment was proclaimed. It dissolved the league as illegal and demanded the punishment of its originators and abetors. Thereupon the league formally disavowed its allegiance to the order on February the 4th, 1454. All the waiverers followed suit when it became known that the order had tried to assassinate Hans von Beisen, the leader of the league. Thus the baneful 13 years war of the Prussian cities broke out early in 1454. It cost Germany the eastern marches and gave them over to the misrule of the Slavs for several centuries. In a few months the order lost its grasp on the country with the exception of a few fortresses. Marienburg still belonged to it. The hopeless condition of the order is apparent in Louis von Erlich'shausen's prayer for mediation to Kazimir IV of Poland. Thus the grandmaster of the order rivaled the league in playing falls to his country. In February 21st 1454 Hans von Beisen in the name of the Prussian estates declared their submission to the crown of Poland before the king and diet in Krakow. Poland immediately declared war on the order. A treaty was made on March 6th 1454 which regulated the future relations of Prussia to Poland. The king promised the preservation of local privileges and the abrogation of poundage and other obnoxious dues in Pomeril. Only natives were to fill the offices of state and the league was to have a consultative voice in all state affairs. The governor was to represent the Polish king. Kazimir IV shrewdly chose Hans von Beisen for this post. Presently the league took a solemn oath of allegiance to the Polish king. But the progress of the war did not come up to the expectations of the Poles and their Prussian rebels on account of the order's resistance. The smaller towns soon saw how little they had gained by transferring their allegiance. The country split up into two parties. The larger cities such as Danzig, Torn and Elbing together with their dependent ones on both sides of the Vistula followed their commercial interests and adhered to Poland. The poorer agricultural towns of eastern Prussia stood by the order and retained their German character. Finally however the orders succumbed less to a military than to a financial crisis. For as it could no longer pay its mercenaries they had to be bought off by mortgages on the castles they had garrisoned. As the order was even then unable to meet its obligations the mercenaries tried to get their pay by selling the castles and cities to the enemies. Thus in 1455 even Marienburg fell into the power of the rebels. It was retaken in the next year by the faithful mayor Bartholomew Blume and did not finally surrender until 1460. Blume died on the scaffold. A desultory war of plunder and pillage dragged on for some years only relieved by a futile truce. Finally it ended in the second piece of Thorn on October 18th 1466 which the Pope had brought about. The order lost half its possessions. The east which remained to the order became a feudal thief of the Polish crown. It was bound to help Poland against all its enemies and could not make treaties with foreign powers without Poland's consent. The colonization of the order was begun by the stipulation that henceforth half of its members should be Poles and that Poles should be admitted in equal numbers to all its offices. Besides the order had to grant a general amnesty to the rebels. The land which had been filled with agricultural prosperity was a desert. Its inhabitants had in great part died of hunger, misery and disease. The western half severed from the order had also paid the price for its supposed freedom which was out of all proportion to its gain. Danzig, Thorn and Elbing which had borne the brand of the war were financially exhausted and for many years carried a heavy load of debts. To be sure their convenient communication with Poland opened up to them untold sources of wealth. By utilizing these Danzig became the leading Emporium of the North and won an influential political position. Otherwise these cities soon learned how little Poland intended to keep its promises. It desired rather to change the Polish overlordship to full sovereignty and thus thoroughly colonize the country. To avert this doom the forces of the smaller towns and the countryside were insufficient. The effects of the downfall of the mighty state of the Teutonic Order were felt far beyond its boundaries for it deprived Germany of its chief bulwark and its chief military force against the northeast. It was fortunate for Germany that the Slavs at that moment lacked the men to concentrate their powers and lead them to the desired end. Many had looked to the Lithuanian Prince Vithald, but his death in 1430 dashed such hopes to the ground. For Władysław II, who now definitely united Lithuania and Poland, was neither fit nor willing to lead his nation on to victory. On the contrary he pacified the Polish nobility with vast rights and privileges. In consequence the authority of the king sank low, while the citizens and peasants were reduced to servdom and the Polish state declined rapidly. The succession of Władysław's minor son, Władysław III, 1434 to 1444 accelerated this downward course. The government fell into hands of the court nobility. This circumstance led to the failure of prospects which the Hossite government opened to the House of Jagiełło. For one faction of the Bohemians wished to crown the Polish king or the member of his family, King of Bohemia, instead of King Zigizmunt of Germany. But the memory of their former union made a renewed one between Poland and Hungary much more acceptable to the Poles. After the death of Albert II, the Hungarian nobility strove to marry his widow, Elizabeth, to Władysław III, but the queen widow objected. In spite of her objection the Polish king was crowned King of Hungary at Buda. But at first he had to fight hard for his crown against the numerous defendants of the rights of Albert's posthumous son Sladyslaw. The conflict was still undecided when a threatened Turkish invasion drew off both parties. In 1444 Władysław III lost his life in the Battle of Varna which was a victory for the Turks. The Polish magnate chose as king Kazimier the only brother of the late king who died childless, but he who had recently conquered the Principality of Lithuania was not inclined to accept the degraded Polish crown. Thus an interregnum of almost four years, 1444 to 1447 ensued. Kazimier did not change his mind until the Poles offered their crown to Duke Boleslas of Mazovia. He then, in the summer of 1447, was crowned at Krakow. The interregnum had naturally strengthened the power of the magnates. Kazimier strove in vain to break it. For years he refused to take the oath to support the constitution of Poland. At last he had to acknowledge it solemnly at the Diet of Petrika in 1453. Henceforth Poland was an aristocratic republic. But the increased claims on the time and powers of the nobility now grew to such an extent that they could no longer give the proper attention to state affairs. The circumstance led to the formation of a representative government. The provincial assemblies of notables elected representatives who in their name were to vote taxes and direct state affairs in a manner binding to all. There was no definite relation between the number of the electors and the elected, nor was the number of the latter fixed. How arbitrary this form of government was appears from the fact that, regardless of the existence of representatives, every nobleman had the right to appear at the diets and cast a vote which had the same weight as those of the representatives. The High Court and Crown officials who had formerly been members of the King's Privy Council still held the first place at the diets. They now formed the Senates and were a privileged body. The principles soon obtained that without this representative body of the nobility no innovation could be introduced, nor the constitution in a special changed. Naturally there was no room for city representatives in this aristocratic republic. Heavy retribution for this treachery to the German cause fell upon the western, now Polish, half of the state of the Teutonic Order. For its cities and nobility were drawn into this system of government which inevitably led to barbarism. While Poland, irrespective of internal decay, exercised great influence abroad in the first half of the 15th century, the neighboring country of Russia still groaned under its subjugation to the Mongols. It was just making laborious efforts to gather strength for national unity. The Principality of Moscow was the center of this movement. There the House of Kalita, which was founded by a grandson of Aleksandr Nevsky, a tributary to the Khan of the Golden Horde, were the hereditary rulers. By shrewdly fulfilling all its duties to the barbaric overlord, this dynasty secured his grace and favor. Free from interference at home, the House of Kalita could subjugate the petty Russian princes. Thus, in spite of its dependence on the Mongolians, Moscow was already considered the capital of Russia by the middle of the 14th century. Its ruler was called the Prince of Moscow. Especially under Dmitry, 1362 to 1389, the consolidation of the Russian lands progressed so that the country felt strong enough to try to throw off the Mongolian yoke. In 1380 Dmitry, with most of the Russian princes, won a victory over the Mongols on the plains of Kulikovo on the Upper Don, which finally promised the Russians full freedom. But presently the Mongols overwhelmed them with a second invasion. The Khan Timur, Tamerlain, as the follower of Genghis Khan, renewed the Mongolian Empire. The remnants of the Golden Horde in Kipchak also bowed to his rule and gained new strength through incorporation with the military state. As governor for Timur, Toktamish demanded the old tribute from the Russians. He enforced its payment in 1382 by threatening to raise Moscow. Thus, the old dependence was restored. But as the Russians had free sway at home, their power increased unhindered. Hence Dmitry succeeded in conquering Novgorod and making it tributary. He furthered the maintenance of his power by substituting the principle of primogeniture for the senuret in the Russian principalities. Footnote. The senuret is an institution by which the oldest male member of a family succeeds to the throne. Thus an uncle has precedence over the oldest son of a deceased king. End of footnote. Accordingly, Dmitry's eldest son, Vasily, 1389-1425, succeeded. He continued his father's policy of maintaining amicable relations with the Mongols and subjugating the Russian princes. He could even thwart the plans of Vitold, the Lithuanian, in part by marrying his daughter Sophia and giving up Smolensk to him. Although Mongolian invasions still occurred at intervals, Russia progressed steadily and approached the standard of Western European culture in greater measure. Vasily's reign marks the beginning of Russian legislation, the fortification of towns and the transformation of the old military, chiefly by the introduction of gunpowder. But the people clung the more doggedly to the Greek church, in which they saw one of the foundations of the growing national state. Consequently, the Russians positively declined the attempts then made towards a union of the Greek and Roman churches. In contradistinction to Russia, the Scandinavian states succumbed to disintegration from the beginning of the 15th century. The union of Kalmar of 1397 had not sprang from a national necessity but had been meant to further dynastic interests. At first the people deceived themselves on this point because the policy adopted on the basis of the union was anti-German. The crash came in Schleswig. This country was hotly contested after the arbitration of Emperor Sigismund granted it to Eric of Scandinavia as personal property. Supported by the Hanseatic League, Duke Henry, and after 1427 his brother Adorfus, beat off the attack of the enemy. To obtain means for the war, King Eric made ever larger concessions to the Danish nobility at the expense of the crown. On the other hand the peasantry fell into poverty and served them through the weight of the public burdens. The particularistic policy of Sweden soon showed how little the union of Kalmar had taken root in the three United Nations. An uprising of the peasants in 1433 resulted in the regency of two native nobles for Sweden, which nominally still clung to the union. Of these, Charles Knudson Bonde was made commander of the army and navy and Christian Vasa was placed at the head of the administration and judiciary. Endless conflicts naturally followed so that Eric finally left the country when Charles Knudson Bonde alone conducted the regency. The reckless king held his court on the island of Gotland. Now the discontent in Denmark also broke out in revolt. The peasantry rose against the oppression of the nobility. Jutland called upon Duke Adorfus of Schleswig for help, while Norway had to suffer from the administration of the king's stewards. The union was already practically dissolved when the Norwegian and Danish diets declared King Eric the post and raised his nephew, Christopher of Bavaria, to the throne. Although Knudson Bonde retained his position, Sweden acknowledged Christopher as king, at least nominally. His circumspect and energetic policy gradually won him a better position inasmuch as the crown was freed from troublesome outward interference by the peace which he made with Adorfus of Schleswig. But in 1448 Christopher's childless death brought on new disturbances. In Sweden Knudson Bonde was elected king, while the Danes raised the nephew of Adorfus of Schleswig, Count Christian of Oldenburg, to the throne. He tried to strengthen his hold by his marriage with Christopher's widow, while King Eric lived riotously in the castle of Visby. Thence he was dislodged by Knudson. He gave up Gothland to the Danes and returned to his Pameranian home. Meanwhile the fight went on between Knudson and Christian of Oldenburg, for the latter was recognized also in Norway, which he formally united to Denmark in 1450. Not until Knudson's arbitrary rule occasioned a revolt did Christian succeed in gaining ground in Sweden. Here he was acknowledged king in 1457 whereupon Knudson went into exile. Nevertheless even now the union of the three states was more apparent than real. A capitulation forced on Christian at his election granted him the right of electing a successor. But in return the Danish nobility gained such an influence in taxation, the appointment of officials and the whole administration that Denmark was changed into a sort of aristocratic republic. Christian's authority sank more and more in Sweden too. On the other hand he followed his uncle in 1460 as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. The estates however did not recognize him until he had promised that their country should never be incorporated with Denmark except by a personal union. Notwithstanding this important district henceforth followed in the wake of Danish politics. This enabled Christian I to emancipate his kingdom gradually from the commercial predominance of the Hanseatic League as well as from its political tutelage. And of chapter 10, the transformation of northeast Germany through the German-Polish Wars, the history of Scandinavia to the second half of the 15th century by Hans Putz. The Unadmiring by Anna Korra-Mawet Ritchie. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Unadmiring. Among social nuisances defend us from those pitiable beings who, through some deficiency in their mental conformation, some lack of vital heat, of acute sensibility, of quick perception, are totally deprived of the faculty to appreciate and the power to admire. Show them a fine statue, and it is stone and marble, chiseled curiously, but conveying no idea, awakening no emotion. Exhibit an exquisite painting, the Chef Duvoir, of some grand old master. It is to them merely color upon a canvas, and a great surplus of darkish paint. Call them a fragrant exotic. It is a nice enough smelling thing, but the poor flower withered by contact with that congenial touch is quickly flung aside. Point out a living landscape, replete with the highest forms of pastoral beauty, verdant wood, and flashing stream, gently swelling hill in dimpling valley, with a background of gorgeous sunset, painting the horizon with purple and crimson and gold. The landscape is to them but trees and water, and the sun going down red enough to auger a hot day tomorrow. These specimens of soil curtailed humanity seem to carry in their hands a disenchanting wand. And at its waving, leaf blossom and fruit fall from the tree of life, and the bare, unsightly stalk is left behind. The beauty and poetry of all creation vanish, and hard, positive, unspiritual prose alone remains. You who are sensitive to sympathetic impression to what Swedenborgians called spheres, avoid these apathetic beings as you would shun infection. Strange and sad to say, there is contagion in the lethargic atmosphere by which they are surrounded. Associate with them, and they insensibly steal away from you the power of appreciation and admiration which they themselves lack. Mr. Quinchum goes with you to hear a world renowned orator. As you listen with rapt attention, his words conjure a panorama, pulsating with life and glowing with vivid hues before your eyes. You soon become excited by his burst of eloquence, melted by his pathos, fired by his enthusiasm and elevated by his lofty sentiments. You turn with an ejaculation of delight towards Quinchum, and discover that a hideous aperture has taken the place of his mouth, and unmistakable weariness looks out from its yawning depths. Abashed at your own state of delectation, you timidly ask what he thinks of the imminent speaker. He shrugs his shoulder and tells you the man is fair enough as times go, but there are no Ciceroes nowadays. Declars it is a bore that people talk so long and make so much noise. Wishes that the fellow would have done with his bombast, and adds that he has a deal of manners and affectation, while his gestures are entirely too violent. It quite fatigues one to see them. Your ardor suddenly cools. You begin to ask whether that which appeared to you a moment before, as finished grace, may not be mannerism and affectation, whether those gestures are not too vehement. Whether that voice is too loud, and whether there is not a touch of bombast in the discourse, you have begun to criticise, to question the grounds for your enjoyment. The oration no longer carries you away. You are half ashamed or afraid to recognise its beauties while you are sitting beside Quinchum. Next Quinchum accompanies you to the opera. It is to hear a prima donna who has gathered laurels in both hemispheres and received the approving nod of crowned heads, the applause of sceptred hands. The opera represented is one of Bellini's noblest inspirations. You believe it is physically impossible that anyone can be insensible to its soul-stirring strains. Ah, you know little of the impervious texture of Quinchum's soul. Bellini is just as incomprehensible to him as is the riddle of the sphinx, just as your heart gives an inward echo to the bravo that resounds on every side. Quinchum coolly exclaims, How absurd the idea of men and women shouting away in that mad style about what they are going to do or what they have done, and talking to each other by bawling in that heathenish fashion. There is certainly nothing more monstrous than an opera, men poisoning themselves in singing, stabbing themselves in singing, going to battle or to execution singing, eating, drinking, getting married or getting killed singing. It's highly amusing, but precious nonsense. But you answer hesitatingly and beginning to perceive some element of the ludicrous in the performance which just now awakened your rapture. But what a glorious voice Madame Blank has. Is it not perfect melody, such power and sweetness combined? Don't you like her voice? Oh, I dare say her voice is good enough. It's not particularly disagreeable. It's only so-so. But there are no great singers nowadays. Startled by such a denouncing assertion, you venture to remark, Perhaps you do not care for music. Perhaps you have no ear. No ear? Why, I suppose I can hear all that din, meaning a magnificent chorus, as plainly as anybody else. Of course Quinchum has no ear. None of the family of Nil-Admeradium have musical ears or artistic eyes. If they had, they could not be signs of that pulseless race. Quinchum annihilates your prima donna as he extinguished your orator. Anon, you find yourself traveling with Quinchum. He is one of a party crossing the Blue Ridge of Virginia. The grandeur of that august chain of mountains strikes you with admiring awe. The picturesque and sublime are so wonderfully mingled that you almost hold your breath as you contemplate nature in this imposing robe of majesty. Quinchum sits back in the stagecoach, which is ascending the winding robe up the mountainside, glances out of the window to see what you are making such a fuss about, and remarks that, It may all be very fine, but a level road would be far preferable. The coach would travel so much faster and get out of these tiresome mountains more quickly. You visit the natural bridge and wire's marvelous cave and other noteworthy places. Quinchum pronounces the bridge a tolerable specimen of nature's handiwork, but he don't think it remarkably high, nor by any means perfect in its form, nor indeed extraordinary in any way. The cave he pronounces a downright swindle, and can discover none of the beautiful sculpturing with which you're all enchanted. He cannot make out Solomon's throne, with its oriental canopy, nor the Falls of Niagara, nor the Statue of Washington, nor the Garden of Paradise, and frigidly asserts that these subterranean wonders are the most unmitigated humbugs. Go where you will, it is all the same. Quinchum yawns when everybody else admires. Quinchum is weary when they are all enraptured, and just as their enthusiasm is roused to the highest pitch, Quinchum is found to be asleep. But his unidealizing presence is felt by the whole party. His companions are half afraid or ashamed to praise the works of God himself, since Quinchum finds so little to reverence and so much to censure in what God has achieved. Can such a man worship? Are not all his devotional feelings stifled by the heavy atmosphere of apathy that envelops his spirit? Paley tells us that the unconscious enjoyment of the mere sense of being is, to his mind, one of the most convincing proofs of God's goodness. Can God seem good to one who perceives nothing good, nothing enjoyable in his own existence, or in the works of the supreme being? If men carry with them to the other world, as they surely must, the traits that compose their characters in this, Quinchum's emotionless nature must be an eternal blasphemy, an everlasting curse. What would heaven be to such a man? Would he not find the supernal regions a very tiresome locality, the songs of the seraphs so-so, and the company of angels a complete nuisance? End of The Unadmiring by Anna Cora-Mawet Ritchie Read by Kelly S. Taylor